You are a Changemaker, Hollaback!

Hollaback! will be piloted in New York City and will expand to two international cities, resulting in the collection of 2,000 stories of harassment and assault in the first year. Hollaback! will produce an annual “State of the Streets” report and will issue regular press releases and op-eds to increase public awareness of the prevalence of gender-based harassment.
We will use the following strategies to successfully implement Hollaback!:
Marketing Strategy:
• Branding: We will develop a new logo to establish a unified brand and create a standard website template to enable use by Hollaback! sites in other cities. We will create a website that not only highlights the pervasiveness of sexual harassment but has comprehensive resources to assist survivors and increase community safety.
• Media Awareness: Hollaback! will leverage its press list of over 75 media outlets that have written about HollabackNYC or RightRides for Women’s Safety. The Women’s Media Center has agreed to help promote Hollaback! to the press and assist in preparing the project team for interviews.
• Social Media: We will leverage our Twitter, MySpace, Facebook accounts, and listserves to reach over 5,000 contacts. We will promote the initiative through RightRides.org and HollabackNYC.com, and will encourage the other 20 Hollaback blogs to do the same.
Public Awareness and Advocacy Strategy:
• Published articles: We will issue a minimum of four strategic articles around the issue of street harassment and assault per year.
• Educational Workshops: Workshops will cover how girls, women, and LGBT individuals can mobilize others within their communities, distribute safety information and resources, and garner media interest around Hollaback! Six workshops will be presented to schools, universities, and community groups within the first year.
• Reports: We will produce an annual “State of the Streets” report that will be used to inform the media and policymakers on rates of harassment and assault in the city.
• Advocacy: We will meet with elected officials in the top 10 neighborhoods most affected to give them the information necessary to champion the Hollaback! cause to their constituents and to other policymakers.
Evaluation Strategy:
• Quality Assurance: Through qualitative surveys, focus groups, and forums, Hollaback! can document outcomes and impact and better engage and organize within communities. We will administer 100 or more completed surveys from program participants and 50 or more completed surveys from activist allies and community partners, with a composite score of 4 or higher on a rating scale of 1 (poor) to 5 (outstanding). These efforts will be led by the Hollaback! team, in conjunction with local community partners, to best reach and connect with constituents. This information will impact our work by highlighting strengths to continue expanding upon, as well as by identifying areas for improvement.
Sustainability Strategy:
• Advisory Board Development. We will recruit ten advisory board members within the first quarter after initial project funding is secured and each member will commit to a $2000 give/get fundraising goal each year.
• Fundraising: To secure Hollaback!’s future, we will fundraise a minimum of $125,000 from foundations, $25,000 from individual donors, $20,000 from the board, $5,000 in ad revenue, and $2,000 from the iPhone platform over the course of the first year. Within five years, Hollaback! expects to be self-sustaining through continued board support, individual donor support, advertising revenue, and app sales.
• Strategic Planning: After the first year in operation, Hollaback! will develop a strategic plan for how best to move forward, building off of lessons learned.

There are risks involved in all social change solutions, particularly those that are technology-based. From our experience launching HollabackNYC and RightRides for Women’s Safety, we have been able to foresee three challenges:
• Safety. If a Changemaker is using the app while they are in a dangerous situation, their safety may be further compromised. To minimize this risk, we’ve developed a feature on the iPhone app that allows individuals to simply press the “Hollaback!” button in that moment. The app will send an automatic email requesting additional information on the crime, and Changemakers can enter the information when they are in a safe location.
• Unreliable or Falsified Data. Because nearly anyone can download the iPhone app, send an SMS text, or submit an email form, there is the possibility that people can send false or accidental data. To eliminate obviously false reports, we are developing an on-line backend database that will allow us to approve or deny posts. To help mitigate the submission of other false or accidental incident reports, we will contract with an independent, third-party evaluation consultative group to develop our “State of the Streets report,” to review our data and project model after the first year, and to make recommendations for data collection and analysis moving forward.
• Organizational Capacity and Scaling Up. Hollaback!’s model for data collection and social change is portable; it can work in nearly any community. While we anticipate great interest in quickly scaling up to provide the technology to other cities, we will take care not to expand in a way that outpaces our organizational capacity.

The concept for Hollaback! was developed in collaboration with some of the brightest minds in the field. Among them, Oraia Reid, the executive director of RightRides for Women’s Safety, has mentored me through the process of launching Hollaback! and has generously offered her organization to be the fiscal sponsor for Hollaback! until nonprofit status is secured. Hollaback! has also had significant input from Joanne Smith, the executive director of Girls for Gender Equity, an organization with a history of grassroots anti-harassment work, and Holly Kearl, who just completed the book Stop Street Harassment, which will be published in 2010. There is already interest to bring Hollaback! to additional cities. Chai Shenoy and Shannon Lynberg, who operate HollabackDC, and Jasmeen Patheja, who operates Blank Noise Project (an anti-harassment initiative) in India, have both agreed to launch Hollaback! in their respective communities. Barnard Center for Research on Women, which is part of Barnard College, is an early funder of this initiative and is incorporating Hollaback! into its “New Feminist Solutions” series.

To meet our ultimate goal of making pubic space safe for all, Hollaback! will impact the following core areas:
IMPACT: Hollaback will track street harassment worldwide, bringing awareness to these otherwise invisible crimes.
• Measuring Impact: Hollaback! will successfully pilot in New York City and launch in two additional sites worldwide in the first year. In two years, we will track over 5,000 stories of harassment and assault that would otherwise be internalized and overlooked. By providing women and LGBT individuals a platform to share their experiences, Hollaback! mitigates the impact of self-blame and perceived self-worthlessness that are common with harassment survivors. Ultimately, survivors’ collective efforts to break the silence will provide the data necessary to end the violence.
IMPACT: Hollaback! will turn everyday women and LGBT individuals into Changemakers and will lead an international movement to end street harassment and assault through our open-source leadership model.
• Measuring Impact: Hollaback!’s tiered leadership structure builds meaningful opportunities for leadership at any level of engagement. To attract future Changemakers, Hollaback! will secure at least 20 media hits, publish no less than six articles, and present to 15 universities and community groups each year. Hollaback! will also sponsor an annual street harassment conference and a “Street Harassment Leaders Academy.” Beyond street harassment, our open-source code will allow Changemakers from across disciplines to use the Hollaback! model to effect social change.
IMPACT: Hollaback! will inspire policymakers to make communities safer.
• Measuring Impact: Hollaback! will release a “State of the Streets” report and develop unique recommendations for policy change working with leaders in each Hollaback! city. We will also provide advocacy training and resources to Hollaback!’s local leadership.

Hollaback!’s platform transforms women and LGBT individuals into Changemakers with the touch of a button. From studying postings-to-impressions on www.HollabackNYC.com, we know each time a survivor shares their experience with harassment, the post is read by over 1,000 other survivors, supporters, politicians, and the media. The ability to influence the thinking of 1,000 people from one shared experience is something that most projects rarely accomplish. We believe the potential impact for the Hollaback! app will be even greater.